Once

Reader: Luke M
Age: 16
Title: Once
Author: Morris Gleitzman
Publisher: Macmillan Childern's Publishing Group
Pub Date: April 2010
Galley: Yes
Nominate for Teens’ Top 10: Yes
Annotation: When Felix escapes the orphanage to find his parents and warn them of Nazi book haters, he could hardly imagine the situation he had gotten himself into. After rescuing a girl from a fire and being sent to a ghetto, it will take all his luck and story-telling skills to survive.
Recommend: Yes
Compelling Aspect of the Book: I greatly enjoyed how the story was told from a young child. How Felix slowly grasped the situation and the how it took him a long time to get that the Nazis weren't just mean library cleaners or hated Jewish books but wanted to kill him and the motives they had for this was chilling but seemed what a young child would've thought.
Did you finish: Yes
Were you disappointed with the book at all: I liked the ending and how vague it was. It left the impression of how lucky they were and allowed the reader to decide if they survived. The book was not a happy book and should not have a truly happy ending so this works very well. On a side note, I never caught Felix's age. This might be something worth adding. He would've been probably 8-12 age range to not grasp the situation but still do the things he did. Also, more reference to the timing of the book would've been nice. I could not tell if the book was two weeks to several years.
Did the cover tempt you and/or reflect the contents: The cover was interesting but would do nothing to make it stand out among other Holocaust books and
was dull. Very little barb wire is in the book anyway and books would be much more reflective of the story than the current cover. The colors were good though.
Age Range: 14-15
Quality: 4Q Better than most
Popularity: 4P Broad general teen appeal